ITK, Inuit leaders, celebrate selection of Arviat, Nunavut, as Inuit Nunangat University main campus
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ITK announces main campus of Inuit Nunangat University will be in Arviat, Nunavut. Watch livestream here.
“One of the driving forces of the strength of our society is our knowledge and our education. So having a university in Inuit Nunangat is going to be another step that we need to secure our country,” said ITK President Natan Obed.
Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, Inuit Circumpolar Council, Inuit Treaty Organization leaders and other Inuit delegates travelled to Kalaallit Nunaat in February to show support for Kalaallit sovereignty and self-determination and to celebrate the opening of the Canadian Consulate in Nuuk.
“No other nation states can come to us and tell us what we should have done, or what we have to do to maintain sovereignty over our homeland. We do that ourselves, and we’ve articulated that again and again over the past 200 years,” said ITK President Natan Obed
Using decades of remote sensing imagery, ITK has determined that Inuit Nunangat is home to 32% of Canada’s surface freshwater – more than the surface area of all five Great Lakes combined.
“The best thing we can do to counter that is to invest in our homeland, invest in our communities, invest in our people.”
Carla Pamak, Inuit Research Advisor with the Nunatsiavut Research Centre, has been presented with the 2025 Inuit Recognition Award
ITK welcomes Budget 2025 references to Inuit, including support for Inuit Nunangat University and $1B over four years for a new Arctic Infrastructure Fund
In December 2021, the Government of Canada committed to closing the Inuit Nunangat infrastructure gap by 2030. This report supports those efforts by outlining the areas where Inuit Treaty Organizations recommend prioritizing investment.
“It is a little bit confusing to Inuit that all of a sudden, those people who otherwise have been completely ignorant of Inuit and our realities, are imagining they’re going to decide what happens in our homeland,” says ITK President Natan Obed.
Diana Neill-Anawak is the recipient of the 2025 ITK Award for Inuit Excellence
